PIF TIFF
Having spent the best part of 13 years complaining about their club being owned by a famously tyrannical despot who was quite clearly using it to further his own self-serving interests, Newcastle fans were understandably delighted when Mike Ashley finally decided to sell up to a famously tyrannical despot who is quite clearly using it to further his own self-serving interests. When it was quietly pointed out that, for all his many flaws, Ashley had not to the best of anyone’s knowledge ever ordered anyone’s murder and isn’t the leader of a state where mass beheadings, the flagrant abuse of human rights and the daily bombing of innocents abroad are de rigueur, many of those fans pointed out that their club hadn’t actually been bought by Saudi Arabia, but its Public Investment Fund. What’s more, the Premier League had received “legally binding assurances” that the Saudi state would not have control of the club.
And while Football Daily has a handful of magic beans it would like to sell anyone who genuinely believed these assurances to be true, they could at least steer the naysayers in the direction of an interview given by Richard Masters to the BBC around the time of the sale in November 2021, where he said with a commendably straight face that if his organisation found evidence there was Saudi state involvement in the running of the club “we can remove the consortium as owners of the club”. You can imagine Richard’s surprise when last week, in a legal dispute between golf’s PGA Tour and its Saudi-backed sportswashing counterpart the LIV Tour, PIF argued in a US court that it deserved sovereign immunity because – drum roll – it is indistinguishable from the Saudi state. As Groucho Marx once didn’t quite say: “These are my legally binding assurances but if you don’t like them I have other ones.”
In a document submitted to that same US court yesterday, Newcastle’s chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan, was described as “a sitting minister of the Saudi government”, a description that raises new and interesting questions over the level of separation any fool knows doesn’t exist between the club’s ownership and the Saudi state. Various other Premier League clubs are reported to have got the collective radge on over the matter, while those busybody buzz-kills at Amnesty International have also had their say.
“It was always stretching credulity to breaking point to imagine that the Saudi state wasn’t directing the buyout of Newcastle with the ultimate aim of using the club as a component in its wider sportswashing efforts,” said Amnesty’s Peter Frankental. “The Premier League will surely need to re-examine the assurances made about the non-involvement of the Saudi authorities in the Newcastle deal, not least as there’s still a Qatari bid for Manchester United currently on the table.” Having had so much to say on the matter when waving through Saudi Arabia’s bid for Newcastle 13 months ago, for now the Premier League and its chief executive are maintaining a throughly undignified silence by choosing not to comment.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We had a note from the Football Association yesterday saying we needed to pay £10,000 for the VAR. I said if we’re going to do that then I’d rather we put it in an envelope and give it to the referee! I said to the lads from Southampton afterwards I don’t know how they live with it week-in, week-out but when it goes your way … absolutely amazing” – Grimsby Town chairman and Big Website columnist Jason Stockwood reveals he is still not a VAR convert despite seeing a late Theo Walcott goal ruled out by the technology in the League Two side’s remarkable FA Cup win at Southampton.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Why is it often Newcastle fans who tempt fate with tattoos (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition)? For God’s sake, no one get ink of Almirón the day before the transfer window opens” – Michael Hann.
Reading the letter from a Darlington resident about Feethams, I was a long-suffering supporter in the 60s as a schoolboy, saving up all my pocket money to attend matches there, the highlight was a capacity crowd in 1965 in the FA Cup against Arsenal, who as an Islington resident for the past 40 years I support now. No Cup shock, Arsenal won 2-0. The rest of the time Darlington were losing match after match, languishing in the lowest divisions while my fellow football fans ridiculed me for supporting such a rubbish team. On the way back to the railway station in 1989 after visiting a sick aunt in hospital with my four-year-old daughter, we made a small detour to Feethams, to see Darlington lose again. Ironically, it was the last time I saw Darlington play as well as my aunt, who passed away shortly afterwards. Now I can bask in the glory of Arsenal’s best season for a while but Darlington is still in my heart. Sad!” – Laurie Hollande.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Michael Hann.
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